This was not Kai’s first concert, in fact we had gone to see Sir Simon Brattle and the Berlin Philharmonic a few months back (an amazing performance). But since it was inside the womb, maybe we can’t count that.
Taking advantage of the Tuesday lunchtime concert series, Kai got to bring his very own comfort lounge to the performance — a philharmonic drive in! It wasn’t Sir Simon Brattle this time though, so I think we’ll need to see how we can sneak Kai into a proper performance.
Babies like to eat. Wolfson’s like to eat. Wolfson babies like to eat. A lot.
Which means that Chika has more than a full time job on her hands. We now are into full swing on the breast-feeding side, so our midwife gave the OK to begin using the bottle.
The good news is that hopefully this will give Chika a needed break now and then, and spread the work around (Grandma Yukie taking on this one here). It still requires plenty of additional work (the human body has a built in warming mechanism and can be served on-demand, while refrigerated bottles need prep time). Plus it’s still the extra work of getting it into bottles in the first place.
All in all, the good news is that for the 10-30 minutes that Kai is eating, he is generally happy, peaceful and quiet. I think that is the favorite word combo in this household.
Traveling +1 is not just a matter of arithmetic. It becomes a logistics exercise. To take the buggy (and where can you park it) or go with the sling (and how do you eat while wearing an infant on your chest) become part of the equation.
Luckily Kai was extremely cooperative today. Chika had deposited him into the sling (yes, he is there hiding under Chika’s custom convertible Japanese outerwear) and all through the journey there, the 1 1/2 hour brunch, and the journey home he either slept or cuddled awake with mom.
Do we pursue onwards with new found courage, or is it just a unstable condition waiting to explode?
The concept of sleep revolving around when the sun comes up or goes down had already passed even before Kai (Chika and I both lived in Finland where days can be dusk in the winter and nights could be neverending dawn in the summer). But the new sleeping schedule is something which can’t be easily reckoned with, especially as it suddenly switches on after birth. Kai has been pretty good. He does 4 hour stretches sometimes, and sometimes will head back to sleep after a meal and a change. However, sometimes he just feels like being a nightowl, and wants to hang around with mommy and daddy. Those are the hard ones.
June 2010. We had been living in Berlin since the beginning of April. I had recently come back from a trip to Asia (Japan/Hong Kong) for Chika’s friend’s wedding and startup project. Luckily missed the whole ash cloud debacle.
Getting the hang of the new city and new language was challenging. Our relocation officer had gotten into a car accident on the way to meet for the ultrasound appointment, so we were faced with sorting things out on our own. Filling out the forms in the doctors office was an exercise in patience and Google Translate on the mobile. But all went well and the results were all in the right places.